You may or may not know, for example, the Nvidia hardware in the XBox was tested using OpenGL but switched to DirectX for all-too-familiar reasons. The Xbox will remain a thoroughly closed abomination owned by the devil for all time.

What I find humourous about that statement, Prince, is that all three of the current consoles are "thoroughly closed abomination owned by the devil for all time". What would really be nice is if something like the Indema (Was that was it was called?) could ever get off the drawing board and into peoples homes. Then maybe we could get something running on them.

What I find humourous about that statement, Prince, is that all three of the current consoles are "thoroughly closed abomination owned by the devil for all time". What would really be nice is if something like the Indema (Was that was it was called?) could ever get off the drawing board and into peoples homes. Then maybe we could get something running on them.

]...except that I came to the conclusion that Sony-san does not want this to happen to PS it would devalue the whole product by diluting its exclusivity. How do you control franchise licensing for a Java title? How is Sony-san going to extract his yen from Alien Flux?

The conclusion we came to (and again, more recently in an interview with Java Developers Journal) runs something like this:

Me: Sony don't need a JVM in reality because it loosens their grip on the PS franchise.

JeffK: Oh no it doesn't

there are issues of both Sun and Sony confidentaility here I assume you already understand.

Given that i can tell you the following:

(1) There have been issues between Sun and Sony about a PS2 port.

(2) Opening the platform is NOT one of them. We presented them with a number of solutions to this problem ranging from the VM being destributed as licensed middleware to them actually owning the VM and encrypting the class files with a private key.

The important thing is that I am convinced thatw e convinced them that this wont open the box. (And any hopes that we would were wrong to begin with.)

(3) There *are* some technical issues I cannot discuss without violating my Sony NDA. They are tough but i believe solvable in the end. There are business issues which the business guys are workign on. The business relationship is actually pretty strong, as anyone who was at the third day of the game summit might surmise from the 8 PS2s we had playing games (just for fun.)

We still have not given up hope here and I'd encourage you not to either, but I'd also quickly say that at this stage I can't *promise* what will show up when, if ever.

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The way forward out of this corporate deadlock can only come from a 3rd party and selling their JVM to developers already licensed to produce Playstation games. The consumer need never know or care about Java. It's not exactly a winning situation for Sun but somebody'll make some money out of it.

The way forward out of this corporate deadlock can only come from a 3rd party and selling their JVM to developers already licensed to produce Playstation games. The consumer need never know or care about Java. It's not exactly a winning situation for Sun but somebody'll make some money out of it.

Cas

Absolutes are never absolutely right Cas. You know that

Thats one solution. Its not a solution I can have any impact on, so I'm concentrating my efforts on the ones where I can.

JK

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I'd take that one as well. Considering the apparent jump in learning curve from std. console to next-gen console, and assuming the jump to the next-next-gen consoles may be even higher, it seems logical that Sony might look at development platforms that hide some of that complexity. Java seems an obvious choice.

I'm confident enough to put 5 down on Java appearing on the PS3.... ;-)

Well, Sony have flat-out stated that they're making the PS3 even more difficult to program than the PS2, just to raise the bar. The idea is that with companies being forced to use better programmers or get out of the market, the game quality will improve. With that in mind, they should avoid Java entirely as it opens up the field a lot more than they'd like.

I personally don't see the connection between more proficient programmers and better games, and don't think such a strategy will actually pay off for Sony. But time will tell.

I'll take five on "Sony(Games) are too busy designing PSP and PS3 to care much about Java - why do they care what the games are written in anyway?"

Well, Sony have flat-out stated that they're making the PS3 even more difficult to program than the PS2, just to raise the bar.

I'd really like to see a reliable quote on that. Everyone I know on that side of the coin is very concerned about supporting the developers so they get product out the door, not making it harder for them and being a weakly supported platform.

You know, I'll have to take that comment back. I'm *sure* I read it somewhere (stated as an official quote), but I can't seem to find it now. In the absence of any evidence, I take it all back. Apart from my wager, that still holds!

I guess it's the kind of thing that can easily happen with what they're doing. There's been so many conflicting reports about the PS3, when it'll be shipped, whether it'll use Cell or not ("not" at last count - that's been slipped to PS4)...

I'd like to put 5 on "Sony doesn't see Java as a viable contender and they are doing just fine as the way things are now, thank you".

What are the odds? I think I want to cover that one

JK

Ooops, sorry! I originally included it, but thought better of risking a figure .

5-1: since Sony have quite a history of innovation (recall the PS's birth: a collaboration with Nintendo, which Nintendo pulled out of, and Sony eventually went ahead with anyway), and are quite willing to do unusual things to win a market-share battle (note: MS have a tendency to do "the same old things" instead). Also, Sony are painfully aware that PlayStation == Sony's saviour, and that they conquered a new market through fundamentally changing the audience (altering the demographic of games players, from teenagers to wealthy trendy 20/30-somethings).

So, I reckon there's a fairly good chance of it.

PS Warning for the unwary: I don't have to pay out on this until Sony goes bankrupt, because until then, they might *at any time* bring out a JVM

But they miss out on any greater technical detail, as memory is going to be vitally important if you are expecting anything other than crappy MIDlets to run on it.

The point being is that its got to be running on some OS for internet connection, and as most likely Linux would be chosen (cant see Windows CE some how).

This also highlights another problem, speed, the CPU in the PS2 runs at 294Mhz and is a RISC processor, with 8K data cache its going to be hard on Java.

But I couldn't find the memory bus speed, or the width of the data bus (32,64, 128 bits), used to know it but have forgotten. It also uses dreaded RD-Ram (Rimbus anyone? Thought not), Which is fine for bandwidth but has very poor latency. These are more important.